Miguel Sanchez : 0:10

Welcome to First Gen 1 0 1, the podcast where first generation graduates share their stories and career tips. I am your host, Miguel Sanchez. In this episode, Nia Adams shares our powerful journey from being a first gen student to financial mentor, helping others overcome money, mistakes, and build wealth with confidence. Do not miss out on this opportunity to learn from someone. Who truly embodies perseverance and growth. welcome to another episode of the First Gen 101 podcast. Today we have Nia Adams who's going to share her story and advice with us. Nia, thank you for being here today.

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 0:53

Thank you for having me.

Miguel Sanchez : 0:56

So Nia, I want to get right into it because I know you have a lot to share with us today from your experience to some of the work that you do to help not only first gen students but also Topics that relate to personal finance. We were just talking about this before we started how personal finance goes hand in hand with how first generation students make decisions, whether it's about their careers or education. So, but before we go into that, tell us about your background. Tell us about where you grow up and how was going to college for

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 1:35

So I grew up, I'm from Chicago, and I grew up on the west side of Chicago. So the neighborhood that I grew up in, I would say statistically, I was probably not supposed to be successful. Um, it was a lot of violence. Um, we had some programming and community resources, but a lot of them got removed. And so it, It just wasn't a thriving neighborhood. It was almost a food desert, um, a lot of gang activity and different things like that just to kind of try to paint the picture. Um, I am the third child of three. Uh, My mom had me well my mom and dad were about 17, 18 when they had me, and I was the third child, and they split shortly after. So, just Again, painting the picture, single mother, three children, barely just got outta high school. And so, financially, we just didn't have it. You know, we struggled. I experienced food scarcity. We, I experienced having to eat the same meal so many times because that's just was the most economical option for us. And it shifted and shaped me to the point where I didn't really learn much about personal finance. My mom or dad didn't go to college. Um, both of them went to high school, but my mom didn't graduate high school. She ended up getting a GED. So this, when it came to jobs, of course it limited her options and what jobs she could have and what jobs she could work. And so for me growing up, it was just kind of like, for one, I was the third child. So a lot of my things were kind of like hand me downs, And it just, to me, it shaped the experience for me because it was like, this is what I know to me. That was normal to me. That's what it was supposed to be because that's what I experienced. And so got older. I navigated my finances, on my own bumping my head up and down the road, as I say, a lot of times. And so my college experience again, was, un, It was, I would say it was not a traditional college experience either, because one, I don't have somebody to ask any questions, to ask about their experience, or ask them for guidance. learn from their mistakes, even, you know, so it's kind of like you creating the mold yourself. And on top of that, I had a daughter at 17. So six days before I graduated high school, I had a child. So for college, for me, it was a marathon. It took probably about, it took me 16 years to complete my college education, because since I had a child, I had to stop and start because College had to come second. My first priority was having an income to be able to provide for my So to me, it was a, a rollercoaster, essentially. Like, I don't have anybody to ask for guidance. I don't have anybody to, like, look for tips and tricks or anything like that. And on top of that, I now have to navigate college while having a full-time job while raising a child.

Miguel Sanchez : 4:56

some of the things that come to mind as you're as you mentioned in your experience was a lot of uncertainty sounds

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 5:03

yes,

Miguel Sanchez : 5:04

time you were growing up in your community and then thereafter. So talk to me about your community. Was it typical for someone to go to college in your community? How did the people around high school think about college? Was it an aspiration? Was it something that was just far removed? How did that look like for you in your

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 5:28

So when I was younger, when I was in elementary school, it wasn't something that really, really talked about much. Most people who went to my elementary school. School with me. They either to be honest, did went to jail. Very few of them left and went to college and graduated. Like I have some now that I've seen on my timeline have since now went to college. But for reference, I'm in my forties. So just to give some idea. When I left elementary school, my mom moved us to a better. more developed neighborhood with a lot more resource. It's just a much better neighborhood as a whole. And so I went to a high school in a different area. And there you did hear a little bit more talk about about college, even those who didn't go to college. A lot of people who went to high school with me, they started businesses. They went on to do a lot more, I guess you would say a diverse amount of different careers and fields, but a lot of them open up restaurants. I mean, Just a lot of nice and very productive fields that they went in. But we had more conversations about college, absolutely.

Miguel Sanchez : 6:38

and then for, it sounds like. Most people were just trying to survive

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 6:43

Yeah.

Miguel Sanchez : 6:43

make, make ends meet. And so you have your daughter at 17, I believe you mentioned, and obviously securing her safety is first financially. And otherwise, at what point did you decide I have to go to college? Why was that important to

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 7:02

It was important to me because, for one, I didn't want my daughter to grow up in a similar neighborhood that I did, which meant I needed to have sufficient enough income to fund that. And so, like I said, when my mom moved me to that different neighborhood, I saw a completely different world that I had never experienced before. I saw, Just things I had never seen or known about. So for me, I wanted that my daughter's experience to be closer to that, as opposed to my experience when I was in elementary. And what was the breaking point to make me realize it is I got a job at the postal service. And so working at the postal service, you know, at first you're like, Oh, this is a great job. I get to make great money even though I don't have a degree, but. The way that that job beat and broke me down. I hurt my ankle. I end up having to have surgery. I had boots and cast for two years. You're out there. It was in Chicago. So rain, hell, sleet, snow, like the Constitution says, nothing stops the carrier from its appointed rounds. So having to do all of that. My schedule was very sporadic where I wasn't getting off at a decent enough time to be able to put my daughter in any type of programs. Like the list goes on and on of the different factors and all of them led to the same thing. I need more money.

Miguel Sanchez : 8:31

So, as you, as you mentioned before, it took you some time to complete your graduate degree, excuse me, your undergrad degree. We'll talk about your graduate degree in a moment. Where did you go to undergrad?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 8:42

So for undergrad, I first started at the city community college. Uh, Chicago has a very nice system. It's about five different colleges and you can attend either one of them. And so your, all your credits are transferable. So I would work by the college that was closest to my job. So I've attended three of five in pursuit of my associates. And so with that, I went all the way up until my associate's degree, but the last Semester I started the job at the postal service and like I said, very sporadic hours, so I failed one of my classes, so I didn't get the associates at that point. I ended up with a professional certificate and then again Looking for more economic stability for my daughter, I bought a house around that time, but the house was in the suburbs. And the suburban community college refused to let me graduate from there unless I took a certain amount of classes there. So that prolonged my journey a little bit because now I had to take five classes at this college where I only really needed one. So took that there and then after I graduated from that community college with my associates finally, then I moved on to Chicago State University and that's where I got my Bachelor's of Science.

Miguel Sanchez : 10:09

Terrific. And so for our listeners, it's okay not to go to college. If your goal is to go to college, and we'll talk about whether college is an option for everyone or should it be an option for everyone? I believe it is, but from a personal finance perspective, there might be other options depending on your, on your situation. It's okay to maybe take a break or maybe life makes you take a break. goal is to stay motivated and persistent to the process. What, what did that look like for you in terms of how did having the undergrad degree change your career prospects?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 10:50

So for me, it completely did because I was trying to get out of the postal service because again, a lot of wear tear on my body, crazy hours, outside in the elements all day. So I was consistently applying to other agencies to transfer. It was not until I got my bachelor's that I was able to transfer out of the postal service into another agency. And so with that, I transferred into a receptionist role, which also was a$20,000 pay cut. I must note'cause that's pretty significant. So I moved into that role. But while I was in that role I, again, I am a person that you have to always keep the end in mind. What is it that I'm trying to do? And so with that, I saw the opportunity that I can go for my master's and I can do the homework right here, like, at a sit down job. I just came from running up and down the stairs all day. I'm now at a role that I only work Monday through Friday. I'm sitting at a desk all day. Much less use of my physical labor. Let me use this to my benefit to get me where I'm trying to go.

Miguel Sanchez : 12:06

I like that you mentioned you went from one type of work to a, to a different type of work. And sometimes we take that for granted. I worked in a restaurant for 10 plus years, and I used to work 12 hours a day at times, six, seven days a week. And then going to more of an office job was such a big shift. And every day I'm very grateful for that, and I'm sure you are too. And so tell me about this graduate program. What was that like? That graduate program in, and what were some of the things that you learned there?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 12:36

So, for my graduate program at this is the point where I started to really realize the significance of personal finances and. much I actually became interested in it because. I. With me buying a house and everything, I had to buy books. You know, this was before Google and YouTube university. So this is me having to buy physical books and put tabs in them. And this is the way that I started to learn about personal finance. So for my MBA, I got an MBA in finance.

Miguel Sanchez : 13:10

What were some of the things that you learned in the MBA that were really eye opening that you said to yourself, I wish I had known this five, 10 years

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 13:22

it was a lot. Um, I met a lot of people there. So that to me is one of the biggest parts of attending college. It's not always about the degree or the grades, but the people that you meet there, you are amongst like-minded individuals where you're all working to improve yourself. For whatever reason, you all have one thing that you definitely have in common. You are in a position where you are doing something to improve yourself. So that to me was a very beneficial environment to be in. As far as learning different things, legally, I learned a lot about like the legal process and business law and a lot of things when it comes to like contracts and law, I learned about when it comes to finance, as far as how organizations use finance and how they use them essentially to run their businesses and how it impacts their businesses. And the smallest thing as in how uh. Soda company figures out exactly how much liquid to put in a bottle, to, things like that, you learn how it makes the, the world go round essentially. And so for me, that became very fascinating and on the personal finance aspect, I took personal finance and, As one of my electives,'cause you can choose what other classes you wanna take. So I took personal finance classes as a part of my electives. Um, and for me, I feel like it just started to open my eyes at how many subjects were even. I. Under personal finance that I'd like, I didn't know anything about tax taxes. Like I do my taxes every year, but it was more so just, Oh, well, let me just do my taxes get my refund. It wasn't like actually intricately breaking down exactly what goes into taxes, how different things you do affect your taxes. so for me, it was very eyeopening, to be honest.

Miguel Sanchez : 15:15

I heard recently that most people or some people shy away from personal finance because they believe it's all about stocks and bonds, but it's not, it's taxes, it's behavioral decisions and, um, patterns as such. So on that note. This would be a good segue to the work that you do now. Tell me about the work that you do now. How are you helping people at your institution perspectives?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 15:47

So what I do is I help individuals kind of to your point, release the shame associated with money mistakes. I help them transform their spending habits and so they can achieve wealth, but with confidence. So one of the things I've learned is that. Yes, you need education. You need to learn about money and you need to learn about the different aspects of personal finance. But I also am a firm believer. You need to one research where your money habits came from And you need to build confidence in your actions because I can teach you everything in the world, but if you don't feel confident in your decisions, you're very rarely gonna actually take action for what you just learned because you don't feel confident that you're doing it right. You're gonna continue to second guess yourself, you're gonna talk yourself out of it, you're gonna procrastinate, you're gonna, you know, it's just so many things you'll do instead of actually taking the action. So for me, what I do is I do that through, I have financial coaching, I have courses, as well as I work with a lot of organizations to help them. So I. Discovered a while ago that I can make a bigger impact and reach more people working with organizations, especially when it comes to like some underrepresented communities. I can work with more organizations to reach them. So maybe they can't come to me. They can't afford me. they can, I can still help them. So that's one of the ways that I use. I help them build their curriculums. I review curriculums to make sure that they're considering the unhoused, considering the unbanked, um, and so that their curriculum is not creating shame as opposed to releasing shame, as well as facilitating workshops, consulting basis. So I guess I kind of work on both sides, um, to create the impact that I feel is needed.

Miguel Sanchez : 17:48

So in your line of work, and as we're talking about college and paying for college, in your experience, what would you say? Or how would you advise someone who's thinking about going to college, whether it's someone who's going straight out of high school or later in life, what are some things that you keep in mind as they're planning their college experience?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 18:13

So, for me, I would say one looking into in, well, in Chicago, it was a program called college Excel and I feel like a lot of different cities have similar programs whereas basically you can start taking college courses while you're still in high school. And there's no charge to it, so this is a way to get a head start on college classes. The credits count towards your degree and you didn't come out of your pocket for it. The second thing is a lot of cities now, like, so now they have a lot more programs. I have a 23-year-old daughter. at this point now. So what she's going through that process, it was a scholarship they had that was like, as long as you got this GPA in school, they will cover your first two years. So looking for programs like that, going to a community college first, because now that I have a master's, I have never been asked what community college I went Not Once Once they know I have an MBA and I can verify it, it doesn't really matter. So looking into community colleges because they're more economic, you can take the classes at a cheaper rate. Um, personally, I paid my way through my undergrad. So up to my undergrad I paid out of pocket because they didn't have that scholarship then when I when I did that, so I would I budgeted like I cut cable before Netflix, you know You know, I did that was one of the things I did I cut cable I just looked at ways that I could make cuts and then I would work overtime at work And so whenever overtime I would get would go to the school And so I would register At the first day that they allowed you to register for classes So typically they have a day you could register for classes, and then they have a day that it's the deadline for you to actually pay before you get withdrawn, right? So I would register at the beginning, and when I got paid, the school got paid. And so, as I, you have months. So I would continue to make payments during that time, so by the time it got to that last date that everything was due, I would be have paid it off. That's one of the ways I did it with community college. And then when I went to for my undergrad, my bachelor's, I went to a public university. So Chicago state is a state university. So it's cheaper than if I went to a private institution. So just being very strategic and choosing what institution you attend, comparing cost and being very strategic with your money, I would say.

Miguel Sanchez : 20:44

I feel like you're telling my story and I want to connect three ideas that jumped at me so far that Really spoke to me and I hope this helps anyone listening first is the idea that college and I heard this from an author. I can't remember his name right now, but I'll put the book and the author on the show notes for anyone who wants to read his book. It's a great book on colleges. And one of the things that he talked about is college provides two experiences. One, you get a degree, you learn something. And you build a network. And so, building that network is really important in college, and you mentioned that, and so I'm proud of that. That was just a great idea and resonated well with me. And then another is, well, I went to a community college and like you, I used to pay semester by semester, and there were some semesters when I didn't attend and it took me longer to finish a four year degree because I just couldn't, uh, get a scholarship at the point. There weren't as many financial aid options as they are now. But looking back, it was such a blessing because I didn't have to borrow money because I knew I just had to pay it as I went. So I'm glad you mentioned that. And I don't think you mentioned that. I think it's important is, you know, follow through with maybe a public institution. In other episodes, we talked about private institutions and public and they're all great. But if the public institution is going to help you save some money. Really work on your networking, save some money and do well. So going along, What are some bad habits you're seeing that drives you crazy?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 22:32

Bad habits that, so I, I'm not, bad habits that drive me crazy, and I don't necessarily know if I have one that drives me crazy per se. I do feel like the generation now, I. they need more help with the figure it out gene is what I call it. Having to figure things out on their own. So having to process things, pick a strategy, execute that strategy. I feel like that's something that they probably can have help with. And I think because they've spent a lot of their life like this. Having that face-to-face communication, being able to strike conversations out with others, especially in like prominent places where it would be very important to make good connections and relationships.

Miguel Sanchez : 23:24

What are some things that you see as risks for people in general, uh, going forward?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 23:31

So for individuals, I see a lot of people who avoid their finances as a whole because it's very hard and vulnerable to take that first step to actually look at what it is that you are dealing with. I see a lot of people placing more shame and blame and criticism upon themselves because they feel like, oh, well, I was supposed to be at this point in my life by now. And I should have had this and I was supposed to do this. I didn't reach this goal. Or, of course, social media comparison, so comparing themselves. to somebody else, or like they say, keeping up with the joneses, and I say competing with the johnsons, I say keeping up with the joneses and competing with the johnsons. A lot of times, Lands people in situations that it's like if they just stopped and. leaned into that fear and Looked at and see where they were a lot of times They feel a little bit sigh of relief because it's not as bad as they think and even so once you know what you're dealing With it's a little bit better'cause we have a huge fear of the unknown. So those are things that I see Regularly, I also see where people, they make goals, but that execution part sometimes falls to the wayside. And again, Their first thing is to discouragement, uh, imposter syndrome, negative self-talk, or just limiting money beliefs, and uh, that allows them to not pick it back up again. Instead of picking it back up again. They kind of just throw it to the wayside and go back to

Miguel Sanchez : 25:08

I think comparison is a big issue, especially with younger people. I'm talking about high schoolers who are Thinking about college, you know, they're, they're see their friends, they're going to these types of schools and they, you know, you don't have to go there. It'd be great if you went there, but you don't have to. There are plenty of great options. And so that, uh, self control of not competing, not comparing yourself with others. I think that's, that's really important. So Nia, as we come to the end of our time, If you can go back in time and talk to yourself when you had just started college, what would you say to yourself?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 25:46

If I could go back and talk to myself when I just started college, I would tell myself, just do it. Do it scared. Do it nervous. Do it without all the information. Do it while you still have questions.

Miguel Sanchez : 26:02

That's great advice. Do it without having all the information because you will get it as you get, as through the process. And then the final question for you is, is there anything that we talked about that you wanna elaborate on? Is there anything we haven't discussed that you feel it's important for our listeners to know?

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 26:21

I think that it's important to talk about that there is no set path for any person. In this current day and age, we have a lot of options that you can do kind of to your point when you say like you don't have to go to college. I do believe they have more options where they don't have to, but it's very important to think about what you want to do. and you have to think about if what you want to do requires you to go to college. You do. So we, we also see a lot of people who, I guess you could say, discourage people from going to college. But as we talk about underestimated communities and different things like that, don't you want some doctors? Like, do you want a doctor that didn't go to college? I know I don't. I want my doctor. I want the lawyer that's representing me to be very knowledgeable about the law and those things will require you to go to college. So the, if there's a need for both. is my point. Like, we don't need to build the Narrative of this one is better than that one because it just depends on the person and what their path looks like. If somebody who wants to be a lawyer, it's not better for them not to go to college. So you can't make these generalized statements out to everybody and just know that no matter what you choose, there will be hard work. There will be sacrifice. There will be times where you don't wanna be doing and There will be times where you wanna give up. That's gonna come along whether you go to college or not. College is not the determinant of hard work.

Miguel Sanchez : 27:46

Yeah, thank you very much for spending time with us today.

Nia - @moneyperspectives: 27:50

Thank you for having me.

Miguel Sanchez : 27:52

Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode, like share and subscribe to the podcast.